Listening to the Serial Podcasts by Sarah Koenig

I started listening to Serial, the podcast that was first broadcast in October 2014 as a spin-off of the radio program This American Life.  Narrating a nonfiction story over several episodes, Serial uses investigative journalism techniques to exam a story from different angles, and lets the listener draw his or her own conclusions as to what might have happened.

Season 1 explores the story of a murdered Baltimore teenager Hae Min Lee and the suspect, her former boyfriend Adnan Syed. Syed's gripping story and subsequent trial leading to his conviction leaves the listener question whether the right person was properly convicted, but no answer is provided by the podcast.

 

Season 2 examines the case of army deserter Beau Bergdahl who was captured by the Taliban after he walked out of his post and imprisoned for almost 5 years before he was released by the Taliban via a Guantanamo prisoner exchange.  As the podcast follows interviews conducted with Bergdhal, his fellow soldiers, his high school friends, the listener is left with the indelible impression of a troubled and sheltered young man who was perhaps a bit dim.  His outlandish and romantic ideas about what a soldier's life should be like, demonstrates that Bergdahl probably had no business serving in the army in the first place.  His desertion allegedly caused the U.S. military to spend resources looking for him  resulting in the military court martialing him after he returned.  Bergdahl is awaiting trial.  However, after listening to the types of severe hardship and torture he endured in the hands of the Taliban and his poor judgment, one can't help but feel that he has suffered enough and should be released to recover physically and mentally.

Anyway, Serial is plain good journalism.  It doesn't tell the listener what to think, but its multifaceted and in depth examination of a topic certainly makes one think and make up his or her own mind.

By the way, the art work by Carl Burton that accompanies the website of Serial are gifs or limited motion images that are gripping in themselves and that evoke the desolate landscape of Afghanistan and of the unforgiving military and Taliban establishments.